In the midst of the imploding US and European financial systems and the resultant bankruptcies, nationalizations and bailouts the People’s Daily, China’s official newspaper, called for a new global currency to replace the US dollar. Writing in the People’s Daily edition of 17 September 2008 Professor Shi Jianxun of Shanghai’s Tongji University said that "[t]he world urgently needs to create a diversified currency and financial system and fair and just financial order that is not dependent on the United States."
This was later followed by a Friday 26 September address by Prime Minister Gordon Brown before the United Nations in which he called for a new "global financial order." It is to be based on "transparency, not opacity, rewarding success not excess, responsibility, not impunity, and …is [to be] global not national." Brown went on to say "We must clearly state that the age of irresponsibility must be [at an] end." As the G20 nations prepare to meet in Washington this week Mr. Brown has again called for a new global financial order, a Bretton Woods II. Mr. Brown wants the Middle East oil producers and China to assist in contributing to the bailouts taking place in the United States and Europe. In calling for such contributions Mr. Brown is effectively admitting the United States and Europe are broke and have exhausted their government (and central bank) resources in an effort to cure this massive market correction (frequently called a recession, deep recession or even depression) which has been underway since August 2007. China has announced its own stimulus program but it is unclear whether included in the 4 trillion Yuan amount are new programs or existing ones or a combination of both (my Chinese friends who are cynical about China’s government leaders laughingly tell me it probably includes the infrastructure projects for China’s 2008 Olympics as well).
Professor Jianxun is right to express concern about the financial leadership of the United States and the United States dollar in light of the events taking place in Washington and in the capitals of Europe. Estimates by financial analysts of the various bailouts of US financial institutions, the US automobile industry and god knows who all are at $2.7 trillion dollars with more bailouts likely to come. In Australia in addition to bailing out the automotive industry the government is assisting in the rescue of childcare operator ABC Learning Centres with a A$22 million dollar injection to keep the company afloat until the end of the year. The administrator appointed to oversee the company has estimated that 40% of the company’s childcare centres are unprofitable. Another example of the management of a company assuming inflation by central banks would continue forever without there being any correction.
Any sane person would have to wonder how the United States taxpayer
(as well as the taxpayers of other countries) will pay for all of
this while at the same time trying to recover and grow the US economy
and strengthen the US dollar. The national debt of the United States
is likely to go well above $11 trillion when totaling up all the
financial risks proposing to be addressed by the US Treasury and
the US Federal Reserve (we can be sure that $700 billion is not
the final cost of the bill for the bailout; already AIG has been
refinanced with $150 billion). For example the total derivative
risk covered by CDS (credit default swaps, private contractual financial
instruments insuring against default of debt) which is what finally
sunk Bear Stearns and AIG is estimated to be $62 trillion and the
exposure by US banks and financial institutions for all derivative
products is estimated to be $180 trillion. The US House of Representatives
recently agreed to bail out the US automotive industry and is in
the process of considering providing additional money for the industry.
With this bailout the line outside the corporate soup kitchen is
likely to become very long as the corporate jets start flying into
Washington to get a free meal and a free ride at the expense of
the American taxpayer
In 1999 the US debt was "only" $3.6 trillion; the government
was running a surplus and projecting to pay off the debt by 2015.
What a difference years of large government intervention have made
– expenditures for wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other
large government expenditures to be paid through inflation by the
Federal Reserve with the resultant malinvestments. It is not surprising
then that questions arise about US financial management and the
US dollar. It is time to adopt a global currency for a global economy
– a private asset-based currency rather than a fiat currency
which is subject to political whim, manipulation and wild swings
in value resulting in massive malinvestments and destruction of
savings. It is time to return to gold as the global private currency
for our global economy. Eliminate fiat currency, eliminate fractional
reserve banking, eliminate central banks and their government sponsored
banking cartel which has brought about this massive destruction
of wealth.
The technological and financial revolution which has resulted in
a globalized economy and more open markets among nations has dramatically
broken down trade and other national barriers among countries of
the world. While far from perfectly efficient (due to the vast array
of national protectionist laws and regulations) we have a global
economy in spite of the attempts by governments to preserve the
past with various national barriers. The least-developed nations
can participate in the globalized economy as well as can their larger
developed neighbors. So why do we still have over 150 national currencies
in the world today rather than one global currency? Why is this
nationalistic barrier to trade still standing? The currency and
monetary system to be used in a modern globalized system of trade
and development is simply too important to be left to the numerous
central bank bureaucrats and power brokering politicians who have
various agendas of a political nature rather than the facilitation
of free trade, free markets, economic development and prosperity
for the people of the world. A global currency should be in private
hands and not under political control as it is presently.
The establishment of the developed countries must have sensed the
train wreck and thus began to question whether or not a private
system makes more sense then the current system particularly in
light of the financial crisis which began in August 2007 and continues
to worsen almost daily. In an article published in the Financial
Post November 8, 2007 Benn Steil, Director of International Economics
for the Council on Foreign Relations, says that private money is
a real possibility if the United States does not "return to
long-term fiscal discipline" (raise your hand if you think
the United States government will return to long-term fiscal discipline).
"As for the United States, it needs to perpetuate the sound
money policies of former Federal Reserve chairmen Paul Volcker and
Alan Greenspan and return to long-term fiscal discipline. This is
the only sure way to keep the United States' foreign creditors,
with their massive and growing holdings of dollar debt, feeling
wealthy and secure. It is the market that made the dollar into global
money – and what the market giveth, the market can taketh
away. If…the dollar fails, the market may privatize money
on its own."
Mr. Steil goes to on to say
